Drumstruck was a highly evocative experience for audiences. Just as an image speaks volumes in a movie, the sound of four hundred djembes had its own life force, when all simultaneously beating. But this visceral and fun experience had a deep and broad history that we wanted to highlight for school kids. That’s how the Drumstruck study guide was born. Did you know that many African missionaries strove to suppress the drum, but forbidding its use, because of its mysterious power? Did you know that Miriam Makeba was called Mama Africa and that in 1963, she testified about apartheid before the United Nations? Or that izicathulo or gumboot dancing is a hallmark of urban South African working class culture? These facts, and many others, were covered in our Drumstruck Study Guide which we made available on our website. It was a way to “show off Africa,” to keep the experience of the massive drumming circle alive for weeks, and to provide a political context to something so seemingly simple: a drum.
“The drum, like many exotic articles, is charged with evocative power. The drum is not only a musical instrument; it is also a sacred object and even the tangible form of divinity. It is endowed with a mysterious power, a sort of life force, which however, has been incomprehensible to many missionaries and early travelers, who ordered its suppression and influence by forbidding its use.”
—AKINSOLA AKIWOWO, Nigerian sociology professor
Download the Study Guide (PDF, 2.4MB)